I can’t see what else the goal would be, unless it really was some plan to split the world into East and West; to really solidify the Cold War that’s been ongoing (I do not however buy “denazification”)

Cause, Ukraine seems as fucked politically as the US, when it comes to internal matters anyway. I just can’t imagine Russia is really interested in the state-building and counter-insurgency—or, more accurately, sees that as even a medium-term viable solution.

I still suspect there were specific, concrete actions taken by the US/US-affiliated people that Russia acted in response to (not just the long term NATO stuff, but something more specific).

In hindsight, the US really looked like it was playing a game of chicken by talking about the “imminent” Russian invasion for weeks on end; you can just imagine some CIA spook telling his boss “I know sir we’ve been trying to trigger the invasion but he’s not taking the bait”.

I know that’s conspiracy brain but the insane US involvement just feels like it was very much a ginned-up situation and, frankly, it looks like the US/NATO found themselves in a situation they didn’t really expect. Russia just occupying the breakaway regions was probably what the US was going for; I imagine all parties saw that coming sooner or later, and I imagine the CIA encouraged the build up of whatever kind of anti-Russia fighters it could manage in the region to make it a quagmire.

Like obviously Russia was prepared to take military action against its semi-hostile neighbor; I imagine their government has always found it pragmatic to have a plan for such a thing. I don’t necessarily see that as a sign of aggression, so much as military competence

It shouldn't really be understated that demilitarization is a nebulous and potentially very severe outcome. Without an army, even with something like a "defense force", a state pretty much has to get under someone else's umbrella. Presumably Russia still doesn't want Ukraine under the West's aegis, unless they simply want some agreement that means no or minimal military hardware or missiles will be in Ukraine. But that seems untenable long term. So I have to conclude, if we take demilitarization to be the goal, that Russia wants Ukraine as a sort of protectorate.